In era of Covid vaccination, Goa village is stuck in dark ages as it waits for a doc

Pictures of Covid vaccinators reaching the remotest of villages in India may be worth a thousand forwards, but Bhomo Gaonkar hasn’t seen a doctor in all his 94 years.

Margao: As he fights sepsis from a wound right above his left ankle with a “herbal paste” that his octogenarian wife has prepared, there is an air of resignation about him.

“There is no way I can go to a doctor. I can’t walk even two steps, and no vehicle can come to our village,” Gaonkar told TOI. His tale of suffering echoes through the Goan tribal hamlet of Karla, inhabited by 100 people living in 20 hutments in the inner recesses of the Netravali range of forests of Sanguem taluka, nearly 30km from Margao.